Temple+ Mod for Temple of Elemental Evil

Computer Game History | Computer Game Reviews | Amiga Game Reviews

Temple+ Mod for ToEE

This article on Temple+ for ToEE consists of three sections:

• [§1.0] Temple+ Alpha, ToEE (published in 2015)
• [§2.0] Temple+  v1.0.64, ToEE (published in 2018)
• [§3.0] Temple+ v1.0.75, ToEE (published in 2020)

Temple+ Alpha, ToEE [§1.0]

Developed by Grognards From Hell, Temple+ Alpha is a mod for Troika's cult classic cRPG based on D&D 3rd Edition, Temple of Elemental Evil (2003).

Readers who have not heard of ToEE are kindly referred to my ToEE Review.

Troika's The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) is a great combat cRPG let down by its many bugs, node lag and pathing issues.

As I recall, moebius2778 temple.dll fix was the first bugfix attempt by the community, laying the foundation for what would become the Circle of Eight (Co8) modpack; however, the infamous lag and pathing issues remained.

But to my delight, veteran Co8 modder and dll-hacker Sitra Achara has teamed up with coder Pugmeister to form Grognards From Hell in order to work on their Temple+ project of "hooks, extensions & fixes", which, most notably, includes a rendering reform to eliminate lag caused by particle systems, and a rewrite of the pathing routine!

Having recently played through ToEE with alpha builds of Temple+, I was pleasantly surprised at how many improvements, added features and bugfixes they have already implemented. The rendering reform is in progress thanks to Pugmeister, and Sitra Achara messaged me recently with an update:

"Meanwhile Pug has implemented a much more efficient shadow renderer now which seems to solve the performance issue (also features soft shadows to boot :P). It's coming along very nicely, should be ready in a few weeks or so.." - Nov., 2015.

Just awesome!

• Update (December, 2015): Pro-tip - If your FPS is slowing to a crawl in places like the Wicked Wench or during the Zuggtmoy finale then switch from Map shadows to Simple shadows (according to Sitra Achara ToEE is doing "crazy rasterization on the CPU instead of on the GPU"). I more than doubled my framerate: from 15 FPS to 40 FPS!
• Update (April, 2016): Temple+ 1.0 has officially been released! (requires .NET Framework 4.5.2).
• Update (September, 2016): Current release is 1.0.23

The following vids show how the game played for me with Co8 8.1.0 & Temple+. Vids are listed in reverse chronological order. I don't have a vid of the final boss because when she summons her fungus horde the lag made the game unplayable for me (Update: workaround found, see below and first vid). Note also I was playing on a "gaming" laptop, so those with real PCs may not experience this issue as severely as I did. And yeah, I decided to drop my party of eight and just solo after a while because all the party buffs were reducing the framerate to a slideshow. Btw, if you're wondering how I'm moving so fast it's just the speedup() console command of Co8.

from Co8 import *
speedup()
5

Zuggtmoy, Demon Queen of Fungi

Co8 8.1.0 & Temple+ Build 412. The final battle with Zuggtmoy and her fungus horde, soloed by my twentieth level priestess of Grummsh. FPS is much improved with Simple shadows, though there's still a lil' jumpiness when she summons her minions.

.

Calmert & Terjon

Co8 8.1.0 & Temple+ Build 412. Yeah, I thought I'd wipe these guys out, before finishing up. Force-attacking Calmert sometimes breaks Terjon's dialogue (as it did here). Terjon casts Righteous Might & has 5 attacks per round, but was dropped before his turn. Note the jumpiness after the critical cleave; there's a slo-mo repeat at vid's end. 

Hezrou Guardian 

Co8 8.1.0 & Temple+ Build 412. This toad-like demon - who guards the node of water - was a total joke, probably cuz I saved against his "stench".

Glabrezu Guardian 

Co8 8.1.0 & Temple+ Build 412. The lethargic Glabrezu guardian is fought in the echoey node of earth. As you can see, he went down like a sack of potatoes.

Vrock Guardian

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 412. The Vrock guardian illusionist is fought in the windy node of air. The visuals here are superb.

Balor Guardian 

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 412. Node lag doesn't seem so bad (largely eliminated already)? Sometimes the Balor Guardian will summon another Balor, other times a trio of Hezrou, and yet other times a flock of Quasits (as in the vid). This battle takes place in the node of fire. There seems to be a minor glitch with the "circle spell" effects over the fire node canvas (the black horizontal lines).

Greater Temple Rampage 

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 412. My dervish of destruction wrecks house on trolls and a horde of Greater Temple Bugbears and ogres; then is wrecked in turn by the formidable Greater Temple Ogre crew (yep, I bit off more than I could chew!)

Senshock & Commanders

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 412. The battle with Senshock. I had already killed Hedrack, and before Senshock was scripted to reinforce him, so I had to deal with Senshock as a separate encounter. Here, I also kill Senshock before Barkinar & Degumm could come to help him, so I had to deal with them separately too.

Shows me walking through secrets doors without needing to open them.

Letting Barkinar live - to see his spell repertoire - was a mistake, as he ends up casting Otiluke's Resilient Sphere...

Ruined Tower Battle

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 410. Graphical distortion during area transition (cache)?

Imeryd's Run

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 407. Facing off against the Behemoth Kingfrog & Sea Hag.

Emridy Meadows

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 407. The grizzly & Hill Giant. The single most valuable spell in this fight, at low level, is Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

Lareth the Beautiful

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 407. Example of slowdown. This is one of the most famous battles in the ToEE campaign.

Moathouse Ambush

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 407. Note the laughably bad voice acting, and the lag.

Moathouse Approach

Co8 8.1.0 & TemplePlus Build 407. The party is assailed by giant frogs upon entering the moathouse approach.

 The Town of Hommlet

An exploit I discovered:

Temple+  v1.0.64, ToEE [§2.0]

Developed by Grognards From Hell, Temple+ v1.0.64 is a mod for Troika's cult classic cRPG based on D&D 3rd Edition, Temple of Elemental Evil (2003).

Readers who have not heard of ToEE are kindly referred to my ToEE Review.

Ever wanted to adventure as a party of giants? Well, thanks to the latest version of Temple+, now you can!

And yes, the ground shakes as this monstrous party lumbers about. You will need to check "Tolerant Townsfolk" when in towns such as Hommlet and Nulb.

• Hill Giant ToEE: Reckless brutes of incredible strength but little wit, hill giant characters are never truly accepted into society. Yet they do well on its edges and frontiers, forging a strong and profitable existence. Despite their rugged appearance and great size, their basically humanoid shape makes it easy for them to relate with more civilized folk.

◦ Stat bonuses/penalties: +14 Str (32 at 1st level), -2 Dex, +8 Con (22 at first level), -4 Int, -4 Cha, +9 natural armor, Level Adjustment +4.

◦ First Level Feats: Armor Proficiency: Light, Medium, Heavy, Shield Proficiency, Simple & Martial Weapon Proficiency, Power Attack, Cleave. Should also get Improved Bull Rush and Improved Sunder.

◦ Available Classes: Favored is Barbarian. Can be any class.

• Troll: Trolls have no fear of death. They launch themselves into combat without hesitation,  flailing wildly at the closest opponent. Even when confronted with fire, they try to get around the flames and attack.

◦ Stat bonuses/penalties: +12 Str, +4 Dex, +12 Con, -4 Int, -2 Wis, -4 Cha, +5 Natural Armor, Regen 5, Level Adjustment +5.

◦ First Level Feats: Armor Proficiency: Light, Medium, Heavy, Shield Proficiency, Simple & Martial Weapon Proficiency, Alertness, Iron Will, Track.

◦ Available Classes: Favored is Fighter. Can be any class.

◦ I wonder if these things could be killed by the AI: they take non-lethal damage to all forms of damage except for fire and acid, and must be finished off by fire, acid or coup de grâce. Thus, the name "troll" is doubly apt.

Yep, ridiculously OP. Pathing can also become an issue due to the hitbox size of the giants. Use common sense. But it just goes to show how far Grognards From Hell have been able to push Troika's engine.

Temple+ v1.0.64 has also added Aasimar, Drow and Duergar as playable races along with 9 new classes, 32 new feats and a ridiculous amount of new features and bugfixes.

Temple+ DM Mode

There is also a DM mode; once activated, it displays a draggable and resizeable window, crowned by a wand-waving DarkUnderlord, that allows you to spawn hostile monsters, fudge rolls, teleport to any area, and otherwise toy around and experiment.

I discovered a bug 5 mins in: Chaotic Evil party makes their way to Rannos and attempts to fast travel to the Moathouse, but instead ends up in Emridy Meadows (or whatever that map is with the Hill Giant). Easy work around: instead of fast-travelling by means of dialogue, simply exit the store and fast travel via World Map.

But to finish on a positive note: the engine itself is rock solid. Loadtimes have been reduced, framerates have been increased (GPU-intensive soft shadows seemed fine on my craptop), pathing routine has been optimized, notorious node lag has been eliminated, viewpoint scrolling is very smooth and UI unresponsiveness has been addressed. Congrats to Sitra Achara and Pugmeister for continuing to give ToEE the attention it deserves.

Temple+ 1.0.75, ToEE [§3.0]

Developed by Grognards From Hell, Temple+ v1.0.75 is a mod for Troika's cult classic cRPG based on D&D 3rd Edition, Temple of Elemental Evil (2003).

Readers who have not heard of ToEE are kindly referred to my ToEE Review.

Temple+ 1.0.65 Configuration

Temple+ 1.0.75 Configuration

As can be seen in the above screencaps, several extra features have been added in the latest release of Temple+.

Now, only those who have played patch2 and alphas of Temple+ are going to know how far the technical optimizations have come for ToEE, but everyone is going to benefit. By far, the pathfinding improvements, rendering reform and +compatibility are the most important features of Temple+.

Temple+ reinvigorates a cult classic by making it more accessible than ever, without leveling down any aspect of the game.

Temple+ is not only about bugfixing, compatibility facilitation and engine enhancements, but it also extends the ruleset, expands on tactical movements/actions and smooths-over the AI with a broad brush.

Temple+ Rules Extensibility

Here are the native/patch2 races & classes:

And here are the Temple+ races, sub-races, classes & prestige classes:

That clearly shows ToEE's extensibility as it pertains to character building. Such extensibility is true across the board: one can add skills, feats, spells and items in the same manner due to the provision offered by the game's base-files (cf. ToEE Review for some numbers). 

Temple+ also adds an Override folder with which veterans of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights are familiar: it makes modding easier.

One may argue that such ToEE Build opportunities imbalance ToEE's campaign because it was not designed with such flexibility and power in mind, but here's the crux: the additions are optional. As can be seen in the configuration screencaps above-posted, such Houserules can be checked on or off before the game loads, along with various other parameters. Conversely, the game may be made harder by reducing the leveling rate, limiting the point-pool in chargen, granting enemies max HD and increasing AI radius. Not to mention playing in Ironman mode without having to worry about the game locking up or crashing.

I write off mods that are worthless and champion mods of value. Temple+ is a prime example of value.

Reworked with Temple+, ToEE becomes one of the best cRPGs.

Tactics Mod ToEE

It would also be nice to see the campaign thugged out with a Tactics mod which could justify the extra races, classes, feats and tactical options offered by Temple+: add proper patrols, add new combat encounters (e.g., rival adventuring parties), add overworld waylays and rework preexisting encounters by adding more spellcasters along with bigger, tougher and meaner mobs. Done right, that could be King.

ToEE	ToEE Chargen	ToEE Builds	Wizard Spells ToEE	Bard Spells ToEE
ToEE Review	ToEE Items	ToEE Feats	Cleric Spells ToEE	Paladin Spells ToEE
ToEE Setup	ToEE Mods	TemplePlus	Druid Spells ToEE	Ranger Spells ToEE